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SOCOM 4 lead designer leaves Zipper Interactive
Zipper Interactive community manager Jeremy Dunham has confirmed SOCOM 4 lead designer Travis Steiner has left the development studio to form his own start-up company. Dunham Tweeted yesterday that Steiner wanted to finish his work on SOCOM 4 before leaving to start his own project -- and, other than a very simple flash page, the identity of that project is unknown. Considering Steiner was with Zipper Interactive for about eight years, we're sure that whatever his new excursion is will be worth keeping an eye on. Also, judging by his former studio's lineage, we're going to guess that said project will feature much shooting.
Interview: SOCOM 4's Travis Steiner
SOCOM fans are by far some of the most vocal and opinionated people in gaming today. Having endured the rocky launch of SOCOM Confrontation, the revelation that SOCOM 4 would include support for the PlayStation Move motion controller was met with a large amount of skepticism. We spoke with Zipper Interactive about their plans to address fan concerns, and the challenges of balancing a game with two very different control inputs. Some fans didn't take well to the announcement that SOCOM 4 would use the Move controller. How do you address concerns that motion controls will "ruin" the experience? First and foremost, SOCOM 4 was designed with the DualShock in mind. When we started this game over three years ago, Move didn't even exist yet. I cannot emphasize this point enough: the game supports both controllers. And again, we designed SOCOM 4 with the DualShock in mind. What ended up happening is that when we found out about the Move, we decided to try it out and see if it fits with the SOCOM experience very well. And so far, the reaction of the people that have tried it is that it's actually integrated quite well. The key there is that it's an optional control mechanic, and in no way is any other part of the SOCOM game being hindered or negatively affected by Move's integration.
